Peru to investigate cocaine 'air bridge' where smuggler planes are ignored
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Version 0 of 1. Peru’s defence minister has announced an investigation into allegations of military corruption in the world’s biggest cocaine-producing valley after claims the armed forces turned a blind eye to the ferrying of cocaine abroad by small planes. The official, Jakke Valakivi, said the military’s inspector general would handle the probe. Related: Peru authorises military to shoot down cocaine-smuggling planes Peru’s armed forces have failed to effectively impede an “air bridge” that has delivered more than tonne of cocaine a day to Bolivia in flights that stepped up in tempo in the past few years, according to prosecutors, drug police, former military officers and current and former US drug agents. In part because of the nearly unimpeded “air bridge” from the Apurimac, Ene and Mantaro river valley, Peru surpassed Colombia in 2012 as the world’s biggest cocaine exporter. Police say the airborne flow accounts for roughly half of its production, with each planeload worth at least $7.2m overseas. The trafficking got so brazen that Congress voted unanimously in August to authorise shooting down the single-engine planes. But the government this year inexplicably scrapped plans to buy the required state-of-the-art radar, a $71m expenditure it announced last November. President Ollanta Humala has eight months left in office and an approval rating below 15%. The “narco planes” have touched down just minutes by air from military bases in the nearly road-less region known by its Spanish acronym as the VRAEM. About four times a day they drop on to dirt airstrips, deliver cash and pick up more than 300kg (660lb) of partially refined cocaine, police have told the Associated Press. Wilson Barrantes, a retired army general who has long complained about military drug corruption, said giving the armed forces control of the cocaine-producing valley was “like putting four street dogs to guard a plate of beefsteak”. One accused narco-pilot interviewed by the AP said some local military commanders charged $10,000 per flight to let cocaine commerce go unhindered. The Associated Press said it repeatedly requested interviews with Valakivi, armed forces commander and air force to discuss the issue but none responded. At a news conference with other ministers on Wednesday after a cabinet meeting, Valakivi tersely announced the opening of the investigation. Minutes earlier he called the AP’s report “tendentious” and said the military rejected corruption in its ranks. “Corruption exists but we are always looking out for it,” deputy defence minister Ivan Vega, who runs counterinsurgency efforts in the VRAEM, had previously told the AP. The board chairman of the anti-corruption nonprofit group Transparency International, Jose Ugaz, said military drug corruption was an open secret in the country. “It’s been going on for some time but unfortunately no one has done anything.” The VRAEM region, which is the size of Ireland, has been under a state of emergency for nine years owing to the persistence of drug-running Shining Path rebels. They have killed more than 30 police and soldiers during Humala’s tenure but are now thought to be down to about 60 combatants. The government says destroying coca in the region would cause a bloody backlash by fuelling Shining Path recruitment. Some 6,000 soldiers are stationed at more than 30 bases in the valley, ostensibly to battle “narcoterrorism.” By law counter-narcotics is the job of the fewer than 1,000 narcotics police in Peru. But police rely on the military for airlift and many chafe at joint drug missions with soldiers. |